Lara Rüter »Affenliebe«

May 18, 2026 / 7.30 pm / Literature Café

"So amazing how the observation of primates becomes a self-questioning that penetrates into the most intimate spheres of one's own existence." (Charlotte Gneuss)

They mourn and they fart, they laugh and they get angry, they want as much pleasure and security as possible and then stare at themselves again: the humans - no, the apes. Poet Lara Rüter worked for years in a primate research institute. In her text, she talks radically about the apes and about herself: about the beginnings of life and about dying, about the urge for freedom and touch. In everyday life with the monkeys, the same question keeps coming up: What does it feel like to be human? Hovering between poetry quotes, science questions and moments at the enclosure, this groundbreaking essay shows how writing changes the world. (Hanser 2026)

Lara Rüter was born in Hanover in 1990. She was a prizewinner for poetry at the 26th Open Mike, received the Caroline Schlegel Prize for Essay Writing in 2020, the Wolfgang Weyrauch Prize at the Literary March in 2021, a scholarship from the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony in 2022 and a residency at the Mare-Künstlerhaus in 2023. Her poetry debut "amoretten in netzen", published by Wunderhorn in 2024, received the Kranichsteiner Literaturförderpreis in 2025. She lives in Leipzig.

Admission: 10,- / 7,- EUR ǀ Event organized by Literaturhaus Leipzig e.V.

Discounts are available for disabled people and their companions (only if listed on the disabled pass), unemployed people, schoolchildren and students (up to 35) as well as holders of the Leipzig Pass or an honorary pass, in each case only on presentation of the pass).